With absence requests, employees can request all types of absences — such as vacation, compensatory time off, or caregiver leave. The requests are then reviewed and approved.
Now you can authorize either a specific user or a substitute — in addition to the Administrator — to approve absence requests.
With the Advanced Permissions module, you can set up multi-level approval processes.
This means a request is only considered approved once all defined approval steps have been completed.
For more details, see section 4.
1. Enable Absence Request Features
1.1. Activate Absence Requests
1.2. Determine working time types requiring a request
1.3. Enable absence calender for your employees
3. Single-Level Request Approval
4. Multi-Level Request Approval (Advanced Permissions)
4.1. Configuration
4.2. Display & Operation
4.3. Direct approval (or Rejection)
4.4. Permissions & Notifications
4.5. Migration & Downgrade
5. Individual Approval Process per requested Working Time Type
1. Enable Absence Request Features
1.1. Activate Absence Requests
To use the leave request features in your existing timr account, proceed as follows:
Go to the "Administration/Settings/General" in your timr account and enable absence requests. Do not forget to save this setting.
1.2. Determine working time types requiring a request
To enable leave requests features you have to set up the corresponding working time types accordingly.
For this go to "Administration/Working Time Types". There choose "Vacation" for example and click on the edit symbol. Now you can define that tracking for your employees is only possible "By request".
You can also configure if a substitute is necessary. Here you can find more information about substitutes.
You can also define the approval process for this specific working time type. We will get in more detail in section 5.
From now on the leave request features will be available in your timr account.
You can find further info on requesting leave and approving requests in our help center section about Leave request & approval.
1.3. Enable absence calendar for your employees
You have the option of providing employees with an absence calendar so that they can see, for example, whether other colleagues are already on leave at the desired time when they request leave.
For further details see our help center article about the Absence Calendar.
2. Roles for Approval
You can choose from the following roles for approving requests:
Administrator
Substitute (if activated in the working time type)
Defined user
Additional roles with the “Advanced Permissions” module (Enterprise Plan):
Team leader
Team leader or administrator
3. Single-Level Request Approval
Under Administration / Settings / Working hours you can configure this feature in the Absence requests section.
With the Regular Plan, you have following features:
You can configure one approval instance.
By default, this is the Administrator. However, you can assign the approval permission to another role — see section 2 for details.
Even if another role is authorized, the Administrator can still approve or reject requests — for example, if the assigned approver is absent or unable to process the request.Optionally, you can enable email notifications for new requests.
This allows approvers to approve or reject requests directly from the email.
Additional recipient: You can also enter any email address to receive a notification when the status of a request changes.
This is useful, for example, if the HR department needs to be informed but should not have approval rights.
4. Multi-Level Request Approval (Advanced Permissions)
With this feature, you can set up multi-level approval processes. You can define several approval steps that a request must go through. A request is only considered approved once all required levels have granted approval.
In addition, you can assign direct approval permissions that allow certain roles to approve requests without going through the full approval chain, see section 4.3. for details.
This ensures that responsibilities are clearly defined, and everyone knows how the approval process for absence requests works and who is responsible at each step.
All approvals are fully documented, providing transparency and traceability.
4.1. Configuration
You can define up to four approval levels. Each level must approve before the request is fully accepted.
Marker 1: Approval by:
Choose who should approve at each level. You can select from the roles listed in section 2.
Marker 2: Cancellation approval required:
Enable this option for any level that must confirm cancellation requests. The request is only considered cancelled once all selected levels have approved.
Marker 3: Email notification for approval:
Activate this option to send an email to the users responsible for the current approval step. The request can be approved or rejected directly from the email.
Example:
A user submits a request. The substitute receives the first approval email. After approval by the substitute, the request moves to the team leader.
Once the team leader approves, the administrator is notified in timr and by email.
If the user submits a cancellation, both the team leader and the administrator must approve it before it is cancelled.
4.2. Display & Usage
4.2.1. Personal View
You can find instructions for creating a request here.
Your personal absences are listed under Vacation & Absence.
There you can see your current time and vacation balance as well as all upcoming requests with their current status: Requested, In approval, Approved, Rejected, Cancellation requested, In cancellation, or Cancelled.
Click the three blue lines and select Show to view the request details.
In the detail view you can see:
Marker 1: Status: Current request status
Marker 2: Approval: All required levels and which have already approved
Marker 3: Details: User, type, (if applicable, Substitute) and notes
Marker 4: Period: Requested dates
Marker 5: If it's a vacation request you can see the required vacation days for the period of request.
Marker 6: History: Here you can see exactly when and by whom the application was submitted and when and how it was processed
4.2.2. View for Approvers
Once a request has been submitted, it appears for the respective approval level in the process under Requests / Request Approval.
Possible approval levels include the substitute, a defined user, team leader, or administrator (see section 2 for role assignment).
In this view, you can see all requests with their current status that, according to the configured approval process, are assigned to you for review. You can approve or reject a request by clicking on the three blue lines.
The absence calendar on the right gives you an overview of all absences.
4.3. Direct Approval (or Rejection)
You can define which roles are allowed to approve requests outside of the multi-level process.
This is helpful if an approval step is delayed because someone is unavailable. Authorized roles can still approve or reject the request.
Where can I find requests for direct approval?
If, according to the approval process, it is your turn to approve a request, the corresponding requests appear under Requests / Request Approval.
If you are not currently part of the active approval step, but you are authorized for direct approval, you can find all requests under Requests / All Requests.
From there, you can approve or reject a request immediately by clicking on the three blue lines.
4.4. Permissions & Notifications
Permissions:
Administrators: See all requests and can approve or reject them at any time.
Team leaders: See requests from their team members and can also be authorized for direct approval.
Users: See their own requests and any where they are part of the approval process.
Email notifications:
If you enable email notifications, a message is automatically sent to the approval level responsible for the next approval step.
Requests can be approved or rejected directly from the email notification, making it easy to approve requests on the go.
4.5. Migration & Downgrade
Existing requests
All active requests and working time types are automatically transferred to the new process. Open requests keep their current settings until they are completed.
Fallback for missing roles
If certain roles are no longer available after a downgrade, the administrator automatically takes over approval. The remaining steps are hidden.
5. Individual Approval Process per requested Working Time Type
In section 3, we described the default configuration.
For individual working time types, you can define custom approval rules that override the general settings.
Example:
Your standard approval process is defined as follows:
1. Level: Substitute
2. Level: Team Leader
For sick leave, however, you want to define a separate approval process in which a specific HR team member approves the requests.
To do this, go to Administration / Working Time Types and click on the three blue lines next to the working time type you want to configure.
Important:
The field for configuring an individual approval process is only displayed if the working time type can be requested.
Once you have selected “Individual Approval Process”, the corresponding configuration options will appear.
You can now select from the various roles (see section 2).
If you are using the Advanced Permissions module, you can also configure a multi-level approval process, as described in section 4.
In addition, you can define whether an email notification should be sent to the relevant approval level when a new request of this working time type is submitted.
The request can be approved or rejected directly from this email (see section 4.4.).
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